Animeph

Review: This series continues in the same style and quality where the very popular first season of Honey and Clover (15.04.2005 till 27.09.2005) left off. It is a funny yet serious and authentic view on the life story of some friends who try to graduate from an Art College. It is the story of complicated relationships, unrequited loves, new careers and the search for their own goals, dreams, personalities and things that are important to them. Only few anime have such deep and authentic story-telling to make an anime outstandingly good even without complicated fantasy plots or giant robots saving the world, which is why I count Honey and Clover to my top10 anime. Even the background music, made by the popular J-Pop band “Spitz”, perfectly supports the tragic and happy themes and rounds up a master piece that way.
Rating: 10/10

Review: Louise is the third daughter of the de la Valiel family. She lives in a world where there are Nobles (rich people that can use magic) and Commoners (peasants that can’t use magic). Even though Louise visits a fancy magic school, she is known for being unskilled and whenever she tries to use magic it will end up in an explosion. In the sacred ritual of summoning a familiar, she summons a Commoner (Hirago Seito, a boy of the same age) from the “real world”, unlike everyone else who summons small dragons and other animals. Louise has no choice but to accept Seito as her familiar, while Seito himself do not know what is going on. The rumour of a Commoner being summoned as a familiar is being spread around the school and everyone makes fun of Louise for it, but what is that weird mark on Seito’s hand?

Zero no Tsukaima is the first of 3 successful seasons of an anime story taken from a light novel series. It’s a perfectly balanced and enjoyable mix of romantic comedy, magical fights and political themes.
Rating: 9/10

Review: The NHK anime is based on a popular novel and follows the successful NHK manga release. NHK is a different kind of slice of life story. It is the story of a hikikomori who locked himself away from society and rarely ever leaves his apartment. He goes through all kinds of hardships of geekhood like getting computer game addicted, getting eroge addicted, getting porn addicted, getting drug addicted, getting fooled into buying tons of useless merchandise ending up with a huge dept, getting involved with a suicide group and so on. Yet the story is written in a way that you can still relate to the main-character. But then the beautiful girl Misaki-chan appears in front of his door and proclaims she will help him out of his pitiful situation. Who is she? Why does she want to help him? How does she intend to help him and will she really succeed in helping him?
Rating: 9/10

Review: The story plays in France 18th century. The Chevalier D`Eon is a special agent working for Louis XIV, fighting against recent cult activities. Then one day a coffin is floating on the water. There are weird letters on it and as they open it, they get to see the dead body of the Chevalier’s sister. He thinks the cult is behind it, but the cult is actually more powerful than he predicted because they practise necromancy and can summon golems.

Chevalier is an anime that shows a time and place not ofter to be seen in anime. It does a pretty good job on it, yet I feel there is something missing.
Rating: 8/10

Review: Coyote Ragtime Show is a Sci-Fi action-adventure taking place on the planet Graceland in the far future. There is constant war and the Earth Federation is planning to destroy this planet within 7 days in order to prevent war from spreading to other planets. But there are people like 2 skilled detectives, a high-wanted lawless guy called Mister and a mysterious woman commanding a bunch of maid-girl-cyborg-killer machines still looking for the inheritance of the dead Pirate King that happens to be somewhere on this planet.

This is a pretty exciting and enjoyable anime with lots of action and nice animations, yet it ends to quickly to leave any significant impact on the viewer.
Rating: 8/10

Review: Takahashi Nanami just got into high school and she is looking forward to a happy school life and making lots of new friends. The other girls tell her about Yano Motoharu, who is popular with the girls, always class president and seems to be a perfectly successful nice-guy. However, as Nanami has the chance to get to know him personally, he seems to be like a mean, teasing and careless person. When they both get elected to be class president and vice-class president, they start spending more time together and she start to see Motoharu’s kind a caring side. Is she starting to fall for him? And what kind of sad story is behind the death of his former girlfriend? Will he be able to fall in love again?

Bokura Ga Ita is an enjoyable shoujo romance story taking place in high school surroundings. It seems like a pretty generic shoujo, but has certain qualities to it that make it interesting to watch even for those who usually don’t watch many shoujo anime.
Rating: 8,5/10

Review: Tonagura and a funny comedy romance featuring stock characters we all know, like for example the emotionless small sister, the perverted guy who has an unexpected kind side to him and the embarrassed girl who hands out punches for his perverted actions.

When Kazuki finds out that her childhood friends Yuuji and his sister return to her home town and to being her neighbour again she is really thrilled and happy, because she always had a crush on him. She is rather disappointed when she finds out that Kazuki grew up to be a big pervert. Will it be impossible for her now to continue her love dream from year ago?
Rating: 7/10

Review: Binbou Shimai Monogatari is a heartwarming story that revolves around the 2 sisters Kyou (15) and Asu (9). They live on their own in an old apartment because their father left them and their mother died from an illness. They live a basic and poor yet happy life and are very close to each other. Together they overcome all sorts of daily problems, make new friends and keep trying hard.

In my view this anime show is a little bit childish and has no point to it, but it has those cute and heartwarming aspects, so there might be people who enjoy this show.
Rating: 4/10